


stuffed with flower petals

by aalphard



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26582725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aalphard/pseuds/aalphard
Summary: “Can I do anything for you?”Can you fall in love with me? is what he wants to say.Can you finally realize these flowers grow for you? is what he wants to say.He doesn’t, though.or ritsuka never thought he’d be seeing flowers coming out of his mouth – and the petals are everywhere.
Relationships: Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 102





	stuffed with flower petals

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! this is actually the first time i write given AND my first hanahaki ever so i apologize in advance if it sucks and all but i couldn’t shake it off for a whole week so here it is! i hope you enjoy it <3  
> (just roll with the idea that even thinking that your love might be unrequited is enough to puke out flowers okay ty)

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes again is that the petals are _everywhere_ , strewn across the floor, piled up thick enough that the blood underneath isn’t visible. For a few seconds, he simply stares at them, head tilted forward in utter exhaustion before the itch in his throat returns, vengeful and rough. He coughs again and blood splatters down onto the floor, staining the white tiles in crimson and the dreadful daisies splatter around. He never really cared much about flowers, but if there’s one thing he definitely _knows_ is that he absolutely hates daisies. They’re oddly-shaped and they smell overly sweet and he hates it. He hates the way they climb up his throat violently, scarring the tissue and making it hard for him to breathe. He hates the way they clog up his lungs and make them burn whenever he takes a deep breath. He hates the way they remind him that love _fucking hurts_ and that he never really wanted anything to do with it in the first place.

He never intended to fall in love with Mafuyu.

Ritsuka knew it was him because his eyes would always look for him in the crowds and his tummy would feel funny whenever he smiled early in the morning. He’d feel his lips sliding up without him even noticing whenever Mafuyu told a bad joke and eventually got the punch line wrong. He wasn’t going to tell him, though. He decided against it the minute he realized who he was dying for – because that’s all there was to it. The flowers would eventually clog up his windpipe and crush it unceremoniously all because he fell in love with someone he shouldn’t have fallen for.

At first it had been just shortness of breath and bile. He thought he had a common cold and paid it no mind, but gradually it got worse and worse and whenever he coughed he felt something papery stuck to his throat. And a few days after that came the blood and the wet, wrinkly flower petals. Coughing and gagging up the first flowers had really hurt, but it did not compare to the days after, with the amount of blood that came along with them and that horrible realization that there were now flowers growing inside his lungs, ripping the tissue apart from where the flowers had forcibly settled in.

Sometimes he coughed out a single petal, sometimes he coughed out more than he could count. And then he started coughing up small, bloody flowers. Ritsuka knew what that was, knew what was going on with him and what these blood-stained petals would do to him and he didn’t care.

His first option would be confessing and having his feelings returned, something that would never happen. Mafuyu could surely do better than him – he already had once and there was absolutely no way Ritsuka could ever hope to compare to the one who took all of his firsts, the one who still haunted his every thought. As if.

His second option would be having a risky surgery to erase all traces of it, of _him_ , from his body and have him forget about everything they’d been through. He didn’t want that. He’d rather die than forget his not so funny jokes and the way he pretended not to like the way Ritsuka teased him about literally everything, including the way he drank his coffee way too hot or how he’d be humming literally all the time.

Ritsuka never stood a chance.

Another itch and the prickling in his throat worsens, his lungs burn and he’s sure he’s going to die right as he feels it climbing up, scratching his throat dry. He coughs out blood and two more daisies, completely drenched in crimson droplets, leaving a trail of fire where it scraped along his insides. Ritsuka’s going to die and his cause of death will be _Satou Mafuyu_ and _fucking daisies._ It has come to the point where he needs to spend most of his days locked inside the bathroom, completely alone, coughing out the despised little flowers and probably pieces of his organs along with them.

He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even his sister – and if she knew something was wrong, she didn’t say anything. It was hard keeping it from his friends when he had to take regular breaks all the time to go hide where they couldn’t see the way he shook all over as soon as the detestable daisies made their way up his throat without his consent. He figured he’d just live with it until he was no longer alive to feel it.

“Uenoyama-kun?”

If he already wasn’t feeling like he was suffocating, he is now.

Mafuyu is staring at him, head tilted slightly to the side. Ritsuka never even noticed he’d opened the door. He looks mesmerizing, really, even with his hair slightly messy and tired eyes. Ritsuka nods before looking away, already feeling the oh-so-familiar burn sliding up his windpipe. It’s coming again – and this time he has nowhere else to run because Mafuyu’s standing _right there_.

“Is that blood on your shirt?”

So much for discretion, he thinks.

“Ah,” Ritsuka sighs. _Fuck_. “Yeah, I got a nosebleed.”

Mafuyu hums in response, but Ritsuka doubts he actually believed that. He tries not to look at him, he really does, but there’s something about the shadow he casts before him that makes it impossible for him not to look. That and, well, the fact that he’s probably choking and his presence makes it even harder to deal with. _Fucking daisies…_

“Where’s, uh…” he manages to choke out, voice strained. “Where’s everyone?”

“They locked it up and went home already,” he shrugs. _Right._ “I told them I’d wait for you, but when you took this long I came back to see if you were okay. That looks painful.”

Ritsuka looks down at the bloody tiles and thinks that it could’ve been artistic and beautiful had it not been for the fact that it came out of him, that it hurts like hell. Mafuyu’s staring straight at the pool his blood made on the bathroom floor, eyes gleaming with worry. He opens his mouth once and then twice, not really knowing what to say. Ritsuka is painfully aware of the fact that he’s staring, that if he moved by a single inch, he’d be able to see the dreadful daisies and everything would be over. He wouldn’t be able to hide it anymore.

“That wasn’t a nosebleed,” he says.

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t know how to. His throat itches and burns, his lungs screaming in agony, desperate to get rid of the things that have been growing there, the things that were never supposed to be there in the first place. He has no strength to tell him that _no, it wasn’t a nosebleed_. He has no strength to tell him that _ever since that kiss this has been happening over and over again and it hurts_. He has no strength to tell him that _the mere thought of you makes my lungs burn and my throat clench as these horrid flowers make their way up without me even realizing it._ He has no strength to do anything other than nod weakly, hoping Mafuyu doesn’t notice.

But he does – how could he not?

“How does it feel like?”

Ritsuka almost laughs. He didn’t ask about who he was dying for, didn’t ask when it started. He didn’t want to know any of that because deep down, Ritsuka thinks, maybe he doesn’t even care. It shouldn’t have hurt the way it did, he thinks, but it does. His throat clenches once again in a desperate attempt to get rid of this _nasty_ papery feeling, of the thing stuck in his windpipe, and Ritsuka almost gulps it down.

He doesn’t, though.

He bends over and allows himself to cough it out. It hurts – it hurts so much tears start falling from his eyes, streaming freely down his cheeks as blood pours out of his mouth along with tiny, wrinkled and stained petals. It could’ve been beautiful if it didn’t feel like death itself, he thinks. He could’ve thought it was beautiful had he not been so scared to suffocate to death.

“Like I was stuffed full of these nasty things,” Ritsuka coughs, wiping away the blood in his face with the back of his hand, still refusing to look up at him. “And they float around my lungs all day, waiting for the worst possible moment to decide to climb up my throat and make me cough my organs out.”

Mafuyu doesn’t answer, but Ritsuka can see his shadow still. He bends down again, closing his eyes as another wave comes through – it’s more violent this time, shaking up his entire body as he expels more and more blood. No petals this time, only blood and clot. Maybe he _is_ coughing out his organs, then. He’s dying faster than he thought he would. Well, at least he managed to steal a kiss before he died, right? He got to taste his lips, a mix of sweat and everything essentially _Mafuyu_ that had his heart racing and his head spinning. He got to touch him, see for himself is his lips were as soft as they looked like – and they were even more than what he had hoped for.

He coughs again, but this time nothing comes out. He tastes metal and _daisies_ and his stomach coils as the nausea hits him for the umpteenth time today. Mafuyu touches his back soothingly, trying his best to help him out. If only Ritsuka had the balls to tell him that’s not how it goes, the balls to tell him he’d be better off if he went away because these flowers are growing for him. He doesn’t say anything but instinctively falls back on his touch, savoring it as if it’s the last time he’ll be able to.

“That must hurt a lot,” he comments.

Ritsuka allows himself to laugh before another violent cough bursts through, blood splattering everywhere as six whole flowers fall from his lips. It _hurts_ and the pain is all he can think about – not the way Mafuyu’s hands leave his back or the way he’s suddenly running around him to look him in the eyes. He only concentrates in the trail of fire that runs up his throat and shakes him to his very core as another cough comes along and more blood splatters to the floor – not the way Mafuyu looks at him with wild concern plastered on his face, rough fear gleaming in his eyes. Had he been able to breathe, Ritsuka would’ve laughed.

It hurt a lot, indeed.

It hurt so much Ritsuka even considered having the surgery and erasing the wild hurricane that was Satou Mafuyu from his life.

“Can I do anything for you?”

_Can you fall in love with me?_ is what he wants to say.

_Can you finally realize these flowers grow for you?_ is what he wants to say.

He doesn’t, though.

Mafuyu is still looking at him with panic all over his face. Ritsuka’s blood is all around the bathroom now and none of them mind how their clothes are now stained in crimson in the weirdest places. He stares at the bloody flowers on the floor, floating over his blood as if they’re trying to mock him, moving slightly as if they’re trying to say _you’re hopelessly in love with someone who will never love you back_. He knows that already.

“Uenoyama-kun?”

“I’m fine,” he lies.

“Am I…?”

Ritsuka closes his eyes, bracing himself for the question he already knows is coming. His chest hurts and he feels his throat closing in again – there are more flowers and more blood on the way. He doesn’t even know if he’s bracing himself for the question or the pain anymore. It’s not like it matters, though. They’re both the same.

“Am I the reason you’re like this?” He asks in a whisper, crouching down so that, if Ritsuka opened his eyes, he’d be the first thing he’d see.

He doesn’t open his eyes.

Instead, he coughs another two whole daisies and three lone petals. There’s no blood this time, but his tongue is still stained in red and brown from the blood that already started to dry on his lips. He nods as he spits them on the floor.

Mafuyu doesn’t say anything to him – and Ritsuka isn’t even sure he wants him to. He already knows what his answer is, already knows he never had a chance to begin with. How could he ever think he’d be able to make him look at him the way he looked at the one who got all of his firsts, the one he was still unable to forget. How could he ever think he’d be good enough when he was pathetically kneeling down in blood-stained bathroom tiles as his throat burned with another wave of flowers sliding up? If anything, Mafuyu must’ve been thinking he was pathetic.

“You can go home now,” he manages to choke out.

“I won’t.”

“Okay, look,” Ritsuka coughs, two bloody petals falling to the floor with a wave of blood. “It’s not everyday someone starts puking flowers for you, is it? And it’s nasty, right? You don’t have to deal with it. I’ll manage. Go home.”

Mafuyu sighs. “I’ve never had someone develop it for me before.”

“Okay?”

He pretends his heart didn’t just flip around like a fucking pancake when Mafuyu stretches out his arm and holds his shoulder. He pretends his stomach didn’t coil, pretends his lungs didn’t burn and that his throat didn’t close in on itself as he slowly approached him, not even caring about dirtying his pants with the fresh blood on the floor. Ritsuka pretends his heart didn’t stop for a second when Mafuyu traced his lips with his thumb or when he looked him in the eye, smiling softly at him.

He feels another itch in his throat, another trail of fire as the flowers made their way up again – but he was being kissed and if he’s being honest, he’s never been so conflicted in his life. Luckily, before the flowers burst through his throat, Mafuyu has already let go of him and he bends down in pain, clutching his stomach as more blood flies out, this time with more flowers than he remembers ever having coughed out before.

“Why would you do that?” he whispers, still trying to expel the petals that are stuck to his throat. “You already know they’re for you. At this point you’re only making it hurt.”

“I know,” Mafuyu sighs. “Can I tell you something?”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Ritsuka replies, staring down at the mess that stains his clothes. Petals are stuck to his pants and his shirt is soaked in blood. He’s sat on top of nearly dry blood and it makes him feel disgusted at himself for ever letting it get this far. “I don’t want your pity. We can live our lives as if this never happened and one day it will go away. I’ll fall for someone else and…”

“You’re an idiot.”

Ritsuka knows he is – if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been puking flowers because of an unrequited love. If he wasn’t an idiot, he’d have fallen for someone who would love him back without a doubt. But he didn’t. Yes, he’s the biggest idiot this world has ever seen and he hates himself for it. Your point?

“Tell me why you’re coughing flowers, Uenoyama-kun,” he whispers softly and Ritsuka feels like he’s _this close_ to bursting into tears. This is pure torture. “Tell me.”

“Isn’t it obvious already, though?”

“Tell me.”

So he does.

He tells him he’s fallen for him – _hard_. There are tears in his eyes but they refuse to fall, unlike the petals in his lungs who refuse to stop their journey through his throat, clogging his windpipe until his words are nothing more than whispers. It’s suffocating and he feels like he’s going to die – but he doesn’t stop talking. He tells him about how it started after they kissed and how he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He tells him about how it hurt having to distance himself from him, even more than when he was coughing out blood and whole flowers. He tells him he loves every single detail about him, from the way his hair stands up in the morning to the way he’s so absurdly innocent when he’s way ahead of Ritsuka when it comes to life experiences. He tells him how much he hates the fact that he’ll never be able to stand beside him just because it was never his place to occupy. He tells him he loves him – two or maybe ten times, he doesn’t even know anymore. He tells him he can’t stand not to look at him, not to touch him. He tells him he dreams about his lips and his scent and the way he felt so _absurdly_ perfect when Ritsuka touched him backstage, how much he dreamt about the day he’d be able to do that again.

He tells him, finally, that he’s ready to give up his own life for him.

Mafuyu shakes his head at him, eyes filled to the brim with tears, some already making their way down his cheeks as he smiles sadly at him. He shakes his head for a few seconds before a sob breaks through – and Ritsuka has to stop himself from throwing his arms around him and pulling him close. It’s not his place to occupy, it has never been. He doesn’t get to do that.

“You’re such a big, big idiot.” Mafuyu tells him in a wrecked tone.

Ritsuka blinks at him in confusion, tilting his head to the side. His throat still burns from being rubbed raw but it no longer itches. He allows himself to take a deep breath, the pain making him flinch almost immediately. Mafuyu is still staring at him with teary eyes, bottom lip between his teeth as he tries to keep himself from sobbing.

He opens his mouth and closes it when Mafuyu decides to start talking. His voice is wrecked and it quivers as he starts to tell him about his own flowers – the way the tiny, blue, delicate flowers would climb up his throat if he dared to even think about Ritsuka or the way he shivered whenever he heard his voice. He tells him his heart hurt whenever he thought about removing them and the memories along with them. He tells him he’s loved before but it never hurt this much – and he wouldn’t want to forget it. He tells him it’s different this time, filled with emotions he didn’t get the time to experience with Yuki and that he’s not ashamed of the flowers that are now breaking through his windpipe. Ritsuka doesn’t believe him until Mafuyu bends over with a choked shriek as a blood-stained pile of forget-me-nots fall to the floor.

Mafuyu spits out blood and wheezes in pain, tears flowing freely through his cheeks now. He clutches at his chest in pain, shaking his head. _Big, big idiot_ , he murmurs. Ritsuka almost laughs, nodding. He’s crying as well, he notices. It’s warm and uncomfortable as it slides down his cheeks. He realizes, then, that Mafuyu is way stronger than him for keeping quiet about his own flowers when he was already this far gone, for managing to keep it inside when Ritsuka had been coughing his lungs out in front of him.

_Both of us_ , he wants to say. He doesn’t. _I hate daisies_ is what Ritsuka tells him after a few minutes, after none of them feel the urge to expel anything from their worn-out lungs. Mafuyu giggles before nodding, before crawling up to him in the bloodied bathroom as he envelops himself under Ritsuka’s arms. He nuzzles up to him before looking up with a soft smile, before Ritsuka dares to hold his chin up and bring their lips together once again.

This time, Mafuyu doesn’t taste like anything but blood and something weirdly floral – but Ritsuka finds out he doesn’t really mind. _Let’s agree to never even consider looking at any of those ever again_ is what he tells him, pointing at the blood-stained flowers on the bathroom floor. Mafuyu giggles again, nodding. _Only if you promise me you’ll buy me any flower I want._ Ritsuka brings him closer, resting his chin at the top of his head. He doesn’t say anything, but a single thought crosses his mind – he knows Mafuyu would be upset if he ever said it out loud, but he can’t help himself from thinking that _for you, I’d even give up my own life_.

Because it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at/with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/aaIphard) (´꒳`)


End file.
